Brice Butler was two years old when his father, Bobby Butler, retired after a successful 12-year career with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.

But even though he never really got to experience his father’s playing days as a kid, Brice has heard all the stories.

Bobby has told him, for instance, what it was like to have your name called in the first round of the NFL Draft.

In 1981, as a promising young defensive back out of Florida State, Bobby Butler watched the draft at his fiancé’s apartment, in the company of one sports reporter.

“It was 8 a.m. in the morning, I tried to sleep through the first round, but I couldn’t,” Bobby said Tuesday, from his home right outside Atlanta, Ga.

Then Bobby got a phone call from the Cowboys, which excited him because he wanted to play for them.

They told him they would take him as the 25th overall pick if he was still on the board at that time.

The Falcons pipped Dallas to it by selecting Bobby as the 24th overall draft pick, and he played his entire career with them.

But Bobby will never forget the feeling that came when his name was announced.

“It was awesome. A childhood dream come true. And it was more special (as) I got to share it with my wife, because that’s been our life together from that point on,” Bobby said.

Now, he’s hoping he and his wife will get to share Brice’s moment with him.

Brice’s path to the draft was in many ways, the exact opposite of his father’s.

Brice was a highly regarded recruit when he committed to USC in 2007, but things didn’t pan out with the Trojans, and in 2012, he transferred to San Diego State to finish out his final year of eligibility.

So didn’t have the storybook college career replete with broken records, he wasn’t even invited to the NFL Scouting Combine and it’s extremely unlikely that his name will be called any time before late in Day 3, when rounds four to seven will take place.

Yet, Brice believes he’s made the most of his opportunities.

He put up a good showing in the Casino Del Sol All-Star Game, then turned heads at SDSU’s Pro Day on March 19 by running a blazing 4.36 40 and putting up numbers in the vertical jump, the broad jump and the 3-cone drill that would have vaulted him into the top-3 of all drills at February’s Combine.

After that, the buzz picked up.

Butler talked to the Falcons, Saints, Bears, Chargers and Seahawks that day, and has since worked out with the Falcons and visited with Oakland and Green Bay.

“The Pro Day definitely made me some money and helped me out,” said Butler, who believes that he will be drafted on Saturday.

But he’s not planning to sit around and watch the four final rounds play out on TV.

“Even though I know I’ll most likely be one of those guys drafted in the fourth to seventh round on Saturday, I know I’m not going to want to sit there and watch it,” Butler said in a phone interview Tuesday. “When it comes down to the game of football and the position of receiver, I know I’m better than a lot of the guys out there, and if I’m watching the later rounds and these dudes are getting drafted before me, it’ll just make me mad.”

The draft gurus of the world might dispute that notion, but you have to applaud the way Butler has retained his self-belief after a college football career that never quite panned out the way he’d hoped.

Still, it’s not over yet.

“At the end of the day, you just need the opportunity,” Bobby said. “I was a first round draft choice, but some of the best stories I can tell you are about guys I played with who weren’t drafted – (Falcons linebacker) Jesse Tuggle was a free agent. He didn’t look like a football player, but he played 15 years.”

So with that in mind, here’s what Bobby Butler, the first round draft pick, told Brice, the potential late-round hopeful, in preparation for this weekend’s draft:

“Continue to work out and be ready,” Bobby said. “And from a mental standpoint, don’t listen to what anybody says. The draft never goes 100 percent how everybody thinks it’s going to go.”